THE eROSS-BREEDING OF RACES 155 



none the less deeply-seated conviction exists that from 

 such unions children of the finest nature, nurtured in 

 circumstances most likely to make them worthy members 

 of the community, will be born and reared. It is this 

 conviction which leads to, or at any rate endorses, the 

 exclusiveness which is described as " pride of race." The 

 Anglo-Saxon man and equally the Anglo-Saxon woman 

 (as well as the allied races of neighbouring nationalities) 

 recognize a responsibility, a race duty, resulting from 

 accumulated tradition, the heirloom of long ages of family 

 life, which causes the man to be ashamed of, and the 

 woman to shrink with instinctive horror from, union with 

 an individual of a remote race with whom there can be 

 no real sympathy, no intimate understanding. That 

 seems to me to be the explanation and the justification 

 of the ■' colour bar." 



In relation to the probable effectiveness of sexual 

 selection among uncivilized peoples in favouring and 

 maintaining a particular type or form of features, hair, etc., 

 characteristic of the race, independently of the life- 

 preserving value of such qualities, I may mention, before 

 quitting this difficult but strangely fascinating subject, 

 a fact observed by a traveller in Africa, and related to 

 me by him. ■ Other similar facts are on record. Among 

 the negroes employed as "porters" by my friend, some 

 thirty in number, was one who had a narrow aquiline 

 nose and thin lips. He was as black and as woolly- 

 haired as any of them, but would if of fair complexion 

 have been regarded by Europeans as a very handsome, 

 fine-featured man. Such cases are not uncommon in 

 parts of Africa, where probably an unrecognized mixture 

 with Arab or Hamite blood has occurred. My friend 

 expected this man to be a favourite, on account of what 

 to him appeared to be "good looks," with the girls of 

 the villages at which he camped during a three months' 



